Botswana-Africa's gem

 I have only visited Botswana once, ( Joan, my views: Search results for botswana (joan-myviews.blogspot.com), but the burning desire to return and explore more, increases daily. 

Yes, you guessed right! It was the animals that got me there of course, for, it has Africa's highest concentration of elephants and all the other wonderful animals you would want to see.

Since that initial visit, I have made it my business to learn more about the paradise I got a taste of, which has a population about the same size as my homeland Jamacia, and got its independence in 1966, just four years after we did, but importantly, remains Africa's most stable democracy and its safest country.

 As a proud descendent of the Mandingo Tribe from the Ivory Coast  (my grandmother told me and DNA confirmed it) , since I 'discovered' Africa,  I have wanted to tour the continent widely, but the Ivory Coast is not on my bucket list for that very reason, Safety.

Yes, the former colonial masters so divided the tribes of Africa  and planted such hatred among them, that many countries have been torn by civil war and the modern power-hungry leaders so evil, that they are unwilling to help their population ‘get over it' and move one.

But thank heavens, Rwanda did and is today a very stable and progressive country and one I would love to visit.

Oh boy, how I would also love to visit Mali which had one of history’s greatest and most intellectually-developed empires, but their constant infighting makes it impossible. 

And while I am at it, I shall complain about my great disappointment when I was going to Kenya in 2018, (Joan, my views: KENYA: THE MOST AMAZING OUTDOORS (joan-myviews.blogspot.com), at not being able to visit Ethiopia. For I actually bought an air ticket and obtained a visa to visit that next door country, but guess what, they started a civil war there😡. 

So not only did I lose my air fare (which was non-refundable) but also my visa fee, (US $50), as it is one of the few African countries which does not allow Jamaicans visa-free entry!

It all comes back to security when I travel these days, so my ancestral homeland Ivory Coast, has to sit on the back burner for a while!

 For in 2010, they had another civil war which killed thousands and left over half million people displaced and they have not been able to get their act together yet.

And talking about  wars, I consider a large segment of the Jewish population to be extremely evil because of their support for what the Netanyahu government is doing to the Palestinians, especially the women and children. 

However, what is happening in Gaza is nothing in comparison to what is happening in Somalia, where power hungry blacks have murdered an estimated million of their fellow Africans and today some four million people are said to be on the verge of famine.

What is especially disheartening too is how most of the world, especially the black world, is ignoring what is happening there.😨

But now, I want to return to Botswana, my model country.

Yes, that country is rich in diamonds, but what is outstandings and unusual,  is how  the government has always used its resources to develop its people.

So, it not only has low debt and Africa’s highest credit rating, but also, although 70% of the country is dessert, it gives its citizens free land, free healthcare and free education! In addition, university students receive $154 in allowances monthly.

Incidentally, it is the desert there which has created Botswana’s most important UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Okavango Delta located in the Kalahari Desert. This is a vast inland delta formed with the Okavango River. 

Yup, Botswana is so far up my bucket list, that its bursting.

 

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Kaieteur Falls, Guyana

Absolutely awesome, is all I could think of after seeing Kaieteur Falls for the first time as our 9 seater plane flew low in the huge gorge following the Potaro river from the Pakaraima Mountains and over the 741 feet falls.

View from above (taken with a cheap camera)

Yes, I had seen the brochures and it had looked fabulous, but my friends were right when they told me that you had not seen Guyana if you had not seen the falls.

Expensive to get there yes, but worth every dollar.

All I could think of was that if Jamaica had something like that we would have 6 million tourists per year, not 3 million. 

Yet Guyana is so rich in gold, forestry, bauxite, diamonds and now oil, that they pay tourism scant regard. 

It is also amazing that a huge country like that with all its natural charm only had just over one hundred and forty thousand visitors last year and most were Guyanese who live abroad. 

To get to what must really be the 8th wonder of the world (the Guyanese call it that) we set out from the International airport in a 9 seater twin propeller plane flown by Captain Anil Ranglochan and believe it or not, I got my first flying lesson. For I had the honour of sitting with him in the cockpit where I got the opportunity to use the foot directional pedals and the steering wheel looking instrument which you pull up to get the nose of the plane up and push down to descend. 

It was quite an exhilarating experience but I didn't try it for too long, thinking I might just dump us all in the thick jungle below.😄

And thick jungle it is for it was not until we had flown about 20 minutes before we saw clearings where the mining sites at Mazaruni where they are extracting gold and diamonds at a rapid rate.

Apart from that there are few clearings before the Potaro River and the breathtaking  plateau and gorge comes into view. When we landed at the small airstrip, we were 1500 feet above sea level. Our guide was a Patamouk Amerindian (that's the tribe that discovered the falls) named Leroy. He lives in a cottage with five other guides at the national park but the nearest village to them is 20 minutes away by foot. The name of that village is Chenapaya and has a population of between 600 and 700, many of whom are Guyanese rastas.

From that village one has to walk for two more days to find another settlement. Deep, deep forest indeed.

We got our first view of the falls from Boys Scout view and that when we learnt that the width of the falls was approximately half of the 400 foot width that you see during the rainy season.

 According to Leroy at full blast, these falls dump 136,000 gallons of water per second in to the valley below. 

Boy those Amerindians were certainly right when they called Guyana the "land of many waters".
The flora around the falls are unbelievable as are the stark raw cliff

 edges.

Next we took in the view from Rainbow View and from the number of rainbows that sprung up in the prisms, the name was well selected.

Next we went to the top of the falls to see the water coming down the huge river to the edge. It was here that a young Guyanese girl on tour, ran past the guide two years ago to her death. This was actually the first suicide at that site in recent times although the legend is that it was named for Kai, a chief, or Toshao who acted to save his people by paddling over the falls in an act of self-sacrifice to

Makonaima, the great spirit.

As I am one who does not like heights, I could not even contemplate anything so dramatic but since I couldn't swim, I doused myself with some of the warm, comforting  water.

After what was a really wonderful tour, we flew over large sections of the Essequibo river and really got an opportunity to see the vastness of that magnificent river with its numerous islands.

A tour that was really worth it all the way.

 For additional photographs, see; 
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